Data centers include a complex network of hardware and software that form “clouds”, which may host applications and store large amounts of data for an organization or multiple organizations. An enterprise data center, for example, may be privately owned and discretely provides services for a number of its customers, with each customer using data center resources by way of private networks. Operatively, enterprise data centers provide dynamic “virtual networks” that support server and desktop virtualization. When an enterprise data center runs out of capacity (e.g., storage computing resources, etc.), an enterprise service provider may opt to add more hardware, which results in a direct and permanent increase in data center hardware and/or operational costs. As another option, the enterprise service provider may contract or lease additional computing resources from a public cloud data center, which only temporarily increases hardware and/or operational costs during a lease period. This contract or lease offers numerous advantages and provides a flexible cost structure over simply adding more hardware.
When an enterprise data center shares or leases computing resources from another data center (e.g., such as a public cloud data center), the resultant combination of computing resources is referred to as a “hybrid” cloud. A hybrid cloud generally includes a cloud infrastructure composed of two or more clouds that inter-operate or federate through technology. In essence, a hybrid cloud represents an interaction between private and public clouds where a private cloud joins a public cloud and utilizes public cloud resources in a secure and scalable way. Typically, in a hybrid cloud environment, respective data center resources are shared using an overlay network. Despite numerous advantages offered by hybrid cloud environments, contracting, leasing, coordinating, or otherwise securing additional resources from a public cloud often proves an onerous and complex task.